


The Price You Pay

by Syrinx



Series: Chimerical [5]
Category: Thoroughbred
Genre: Angst, F/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-21
Updated: 2009-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrinx/pseuds/Syrinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Espy: to see at a distance; catch sight of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Price You Pay

This is her truth: everything can be bought and nothing comes without a price. This is her life, a steady stream of possessions and emotions paid in full, a whole lifetime in happiness and security because this is who she is, and this is how she does things. She considers herself lucky.

She also thinks it’s a lie.

Lavinia is not a fool. The grounds of Townsend Acres spread out under her feet, and she knows exactly how she came by them. She finds a sort of calm in knowing, a reassurance that when so much else skips off the tracks she’s so carefully laid, the farm will be there reminding her. This is what she’s in it for.

Love, happiness, security. Bought and paid.

It’s this thought that has her accompanying him off the farm in the mornings, finding herself standing at the rail of a dingy training oval in the middle of a small farm that needs a new coat of paint and is shockingly devoid of landscaping. Her heels sink in the too thick grass, and threaten to tip her over in the loose gravel. The people here lay eyes on her that indicate she is beneath them, and she wants to snap that she _owns _them. One flick of her wrist, and these horses they all love could be somewhere else. Somewhere with lawn care and air conditioning, and she imagines the poor creatures would thank her in the end.

She doesn’t say this, but it runs through her head frequently. She weathers their looks and their half-voiced opinions and says nothing because she knows the truth of the matter, and it does not lie in her favor. It all lies with him, and with _her_, this tiny slip of a girl that holds his heart in her hands.

Lavinia knows when to keep her mouth shut, but every so often she wonders who they think they’re fooling. This constant back and forth is a never-ending play on hatred, and it’s the eyes of everyone on Brad that make her realize how surrounded she is by ignorance.

Every so often she looks at Mike--really looks at him--and wonders how he can’t see it. How he can observe them and have that look in his eyes that she sees in everyone else. It must be typical, she thinks. He is only a man in love with Ashleigh Griffen. He would only see what he wants to see, and Ashleigh is a woman on a pedestal, so far above her.

She thinks most women in her place would stop torturing themselves. She would say something, or stop trying to be so involved, relegate herself to her social calendar like so many others. Maybe it’s just something about her. Bought and paid, she thinks. She owns this, could ruin it if she wanted, and it’s this feeling that has her up at night, lying restless under his arm and a sheet that twists around her legs.

It is an effort to untangle herself, and when she’s free she pads out of the house on bare feet, her body a silhouette in gauzy white as she walks into the darkness of the farm. This is unlike her, but for a moment all she wants is to sit on her land, undisturbed, untroubled, surrounded by the simple choice she made.

“Lav?”

She glances back, sees his form taking shape in the night. She smiles softly at the thought that he is here at all.

“Here,” she says, and feels him approach. He sits next to her on the dew damp ground, puts a hand on the back of her head and tangles his fingers in her hair.

“This isn’t like you.”

“I know.” Somewhere a horse calls out a throaty question that goes unanswered. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Anything wrong?”

She wants to laugh, because so many wrongs have added up they almost feel right. That she is sitting here at all is wrong, that he is with her is wrong, that the ground underneath her feet is hers is wrong. He looks at her, and she can barely make him out in the dark. She wonders if his eyes are on her, or if they’re looking past her. She thinks it’s a small blessing that she cannot know the answer.

“I’m fine,” she says, and it is an easy thing to say, but it is not true.

The truth is she has what she paid for. Of course it is broken.


End file.
